American statistics, in contrast to European statistics, determine the value of individual elements of farms—land, buildings, implements, livestock, and the entire farm—in relation to each separate farm and to each group of farms. Probably these data are less precise than data concerning the quantity of land, but on the whole they are no less reliable, taking into account, moreover (to a certain degree), the general capitalist conditions of agriculture.

To supplement the preceding exposition, we shall take data on the total value of farms with all agricultural property, as well as data on the value of implements and machines. We select implements and machines from the individual elements of farms because they directly indicate that agricultural husbandry is being conducted, and how it is conducted—more or less intensively, with greater or lesser application of technical improvements. Here are the data for all the United States:

Percentage Distribution of Value

The absolute figures show us more than a doubling of the entire value of all property on farms over 1900–1910, namely an increase from 20,440 million dollars to 40,991 million dollars, i.e., by 100.5 percent. The rise in prices of agricultural products and the increase in rent put millions and billions of dollars into the pockets of all landowners at the expense of the working class. To what extent did small and large farms profit from this? The figures given provide the answer. They show the decline of latifundia (recall that the total amount of land in them fell from 23.6 percent to 19.0 percent, by 4.6 percent)—then the displacement of small and medium farms by large, capitalist farms (175–999 acres). Combining all small and medium farms, we get that their share in total property declined from 56.4 percent to 52.7 percent. Combining all large farms with latifundia, we get that their share increased from 43.7 percent to 47.3 percent. The changes in the relationship between small and large farms in the distribution of the total value of implements and machines are completely analogous.

As regards latifundia, we observe in these data as well the phenomenon we noted above. The decline of latifundia is limited to two regions: the South and the West. This is the decline, on the one hand, of slave-holding, on the other, of primitively-predatory and primitively-extensive latifundia. In the settled and industrially-developed North we see an increase of latifundia: both the number of farms of this kind, and the total quantity of land they possess, and the quantity of cultivated land, and their share in the total value of all property (1900—2.5 percent; 1910—2.8 percent), and their share in the total value of all implements and machines.

Moreover, the increasing role of latifundia is observed not only in the North generally, but specifically in both intensive regions of the North, which know nothing of colonization: in New England and in the Middle Atlantic States. On these regions we must dwell in more detail, for they, on the one hand, mislead Mr. Hummer and many others precisely by the small average size of farms and the decrease in this size, and on the other hand, precisely these most intensive regions are most typical for the old, long-settled and civilized countries of Europe.

In both named regions, there decreased from 1900 to 1910 both the number of farms and the total quantity of land and the quantity of cultivated land. In New England there increased only the number of the smallest farms, up to 20 acres, by 22.4 percent (cultivated land on them by 15.5 percent) and the number of latifundia—by 16.3 percent, their cultivated land by 26.8 percent. In the Middle Atlantic States there increased the smallest farms (+7.7 percent in number of farms, +2.5 percent in quantity of cultivated land) and then farms from 175 to 499 acres in number of farms (+1.0 percent) and farms of 500–999 acres in quantity of cultivated land (+3.8 percent). In both regions there increased both the share of the smallest farms and the share of latifundia in the total value of all farm property, as well as of implements and machines. Here are more graphic and more complete data for each of these regions:

Percentage Growth from 1900 to 1910

From this it is evident that in both regions it was precisely the latifundia that strengthened most of all, gained most economically, and advanced most technically. The largest capitalist farms are displacing here all the other, smaller ones. The minimal increase in the value of all property, as well as of implements and machines, is observed either in the middle group, or in the small, but not in the smallest farms. Thus the medium and small farms are lagging behind most of all.

The smallest farms (up to 20 acres), on the other hand, strengthened in both regions above the average, yielding first place only to latifundia. We already know the cause of this phenomenon: in both intensive regions, 31–33 percent of the value of the harvest comes from highly capitalist crops (vegetables, then fruits, flowers, etc.), characterized by an extraordinarily large volume of production with an extraordinarily small area of land under cultivation. Grain crops provide in these regions only 8–30 percent of the value of the harvest, and hay and grasses 31–42 percent: dairy farming is developing, which is also characterized by farm size below average, but by the value of the product and expenditure of capital on hired labor in quantities above average.

In the most intensive regions, there occurs a decrease in the average amount of cultivated land on farms, because this average is obtained from the combination of latifundia and the smallest farms, which are increasing in number faster than medium farms. And the smallest farms are growing in number faster than latifundia. But capitalism grows in a twofold manner: both by increasing the size of farms on the old technical base, and by creating new, especially small and smallest in land area, farms of commercial crops specifically, characterized by, despite negligible land area, an extraordinarily high development of the scale of production and hired labor.

In sum, the greatest strengthening of latifundia and the largest farms, the displacement of medium and small farms, the growth of the smallest highly capitalist farms.

We shall now see how the general result of such contradictory—apparently contradictory—manifestations of capitalism in agriculture can be statistically expressed.